Carla
by MoonStoneFairy89
Summary: Set during ATD aka Book 7, Carla reflects on Sookie's advice and her relationship with Gervaise, Sheriff of Area 4. Just like Sookie makes her choice, Carla has to decide whether to save herself or go back. One-Shot.


_**I haven't written fanfiction in quite a while so pardon any mistakes. Besides, I was just messing around with different styles and this one was started at about midnight and finished at around 2 am on a whim of mine. My point is that I just want to write SOMETHING to exercise my mind. I'll admit that I vaguely edited this so pardon any mistakes once again.**_

_**Reviews are welcome, of course. **_

_**All characters in this are sole property of Charlaine Harris; I just decided to look at the events of book 7 through another POV besides Sookie's. **_

The way _**he**_ looks at her… The way _**he**_ holds her.

She's a fool to deny _**him**_.

She tells me I should be careful. Warns me of the day my own man _stops being nuts _about me_. _

And that's that… her words set everything in motion.

--------

"_Have you ever glamoured me?"_

"_I find diamonds to be the easiest way to glamour a woman."_ he says and kisses the diamond bracelet that covers my wrist.

He lied, of course. All men do, whether vampire or human. I pull my hand away to take off the bracelet and place it on the nightstand nearby. Finally, he relents.

"_You already knew too much information… there were certain things you shouldn't know."_

"_What if after this I decide to leave you? What then?" _I ask

He looks taken aback… He was suave, debonair, and he knew my weakness for pretty things too well. A cold and hard expression takes over. It's an expression I've seen enough of these past three nights from other vampires but not him.

"_Then I shall take all the information you have learned from our world, it will be as if nothing happened-"_

I cut him off… I had promised myself I would never let a man dictate my future. My past served to teach me that much at least. My past had always helped me shape my own present, my own future. I admired the little blonde woman now… she stood her ground with _**him**__, _the Viking.

"_NO!" _It's all I have to say.

It was the only time I ever saw him drop his calm exterior and lose control… He gripped me by my arms, hard.

"_I see she has been a bad influence on you... putting foolish ideas in your head. If you are away from me with what I've let you know… you could die." _

"_Why? _I ask.

"_Foolish woman! You are in no fairy-tale. You would be a target… a weak link in our kingdom. You WILL die for your knowledge, no matter how little you comprehend of it. You are mine."_

Mine… for how long?

Her words echo back into my brain. Until another vamp takes a shine to me? Or how about until he gets conflicted… Had this happened to her? Was that her turmoil? My mind wanders around in circles. Enough!

He lets me leave his room and doesn't push the situation. Besides, it is almost dawn and our last night here approaches. I need time to think. I need time to process the situation I am in. I need to understand that I am with a vampire, a sheriff, and that I know too much for my own good. I need to understand.

The lobby is silent and the lack of windows suddenly suffocates me. The sunny Human floor is quiet as well. I was wrong; this is no longer "people-world".

Maybe that is why her Viking wants her. She understands the world much more than I did. I for all my supposed worldly knowledge had no clue as to what I had gotten into the day I agreed to belong to a vamp.

They had been gliding on the dance floor the other night, oblivious to those around them… and they were beautiful. But she would not accept _**him**_. I wonder if they love each other… I wonder if I feel love as well. I had hoped to avoid that pitfall. Once you involved love, things got a bit tricky.

I think about going to the room I share with her… to speak to her and tell her that I am no longer as sure as I once was. That I blame her for bursting my bubble, for making me _think_ when all I wanted to was to enjoy these four nights, to enjoy each night slowly… but I don't.

I simply wander around the hotel, enjoying the unusual but blissful silence that allows me to think. Before the last night is over, I'll make my choice between the human and vampire world. I'll make my peace.

--------

The alarms startle me from my thoughts and instinct tells me to follow the rest of the sleepy human as they rush out of their rooms and into the lobby. Something is wrong.

And I see her, standing there looking worried and speaking with a small group. I recognize Cataliades and the telepath boy from Texas. Something is definitely wrong.

Her small group leaves her, rushing upstairs to handle whatever it is that is happening while she stands there. Finally, she makes her decision and runs upstairs to the vampire floors, and somehow I know what she plans to do. I wonder if she ever thought of that shifter boyfriend of hers on her way up…

There's a rumbling noise coming from the lowest floor of the building and the realization that the hotel is under attack hits me hard. I make my decision too.

I tell myself, that if this hotel is to go down then all I have will perish with it. The bracelet is worth more than what I will ever manage to earn if I leave the vampire world. I decide go back to get it before all is lost. Well, that's the excuse I give myself, at least. It was always better to hide my emotions behind my vanity and materialism.

He had to be safe. I would still be stuck with that fucking ex-boyfriend of mine if it weren't for him. How did I know that the idiot ex of mine had decided to hide his debts under my name? But no, he had been valuable to me in more ways than dealing with stupid idiot exes and in return I had proved to be just as valuable to him.

And he always did like my personality, I have always been open to so many things… and I knew, I just KNEW, that he had never glamoured me into his bed. I was positively sure of that much at least. Whatever mind tricks he had done, had truly been for my own safety.

But the explosions have gotten more violent and the room is so dark. He never slept in his coffin while I was with him but I hoped that he had slept in it today. I prayed, probably for the first time in months, that he would be in his coffin.

The explosions continue and I get the full effect of what destruction really, truly, sounds like. It is a horrible sound.

In my frenzy, I can't locate the switch but the light from the lobby is enough to see into the room. Panic sets in when I see that he is still on the bed, sleeping peacefully, in the same unruly state we had left it in before I decided to question our relationship. I had wasted precious time.

The building begins to wobble and my balance is completely thrown. I can't wake him. I can't move him. There is nothing I can do to let him know he is in danger. The vampire that he was sharing his room with was probably tucked safely in his coffin like he usually did when I stayed over. Lucky bastard!

Hopelessly I gathered as many blankets as I could to cover him from the sun. There was no use for me to run down to my safety, I was sure the building was ready to collapse. I had no desire to die mangled on some empty stairwell so I held on to him. He had lauded me with gifts, put up with my whims, and had maybe even loved me (in his own way). Who cares if his queen had disliked me, he was proud I was his.

I wondered if she had managed to save _**him**_, her Viking. I knew now that life was no fairy-tale (at least for me) but I that she would so lucky. .

I see a small twinkle coming from the nightstand and recognize it as the bracelet and reach out to get it. Since the night he had given it to me, I had never thought to notice the inscription inside. He had also never mentioned said inscription.

The heavily tinted windows crack and finally explode from the pressure of the building and I can feel the heat from the sun as well as the heat from many fires consuming the building as they begin to approach the room... The inscription was fully visible as soon as the sunshine hit the bracelet.

_I Love You_

I guess, even male vampires, had a hard time expressing emotions. Smiling to myself and clutching Gervaise, I closed my eyes…


End file.
